Tired of impersonal technology, people are turning to the hands-on craft of bookmaking

The closest that Julie Wieringa ever comes to actually touching the instruction manuals she writes for Cisco Systems in Seattle is when she presses the send button to transmit her copy. But on her own time, Wieringa is often wrist deep in glue, cutting and folding paper or stitching the binding for one of the handcrafted journals she makes. "I don't get to touch the product I make at work, but when I make a book, I can pick it up, open the cover and see beautiful creamy pages begging to be written on," she says. "It even smells different."